

7 1/2 lead in a Beretta Silver Pigeon 28-gauge.

Hence that giant puff of feathers in the photo that ran in last week's column about the quail hunt. If you shoot at a bobwhite racing away at full speed with a 28-gauge, you'll hit it with the full pattern, or you will miss. Squeezing that 3/4-ounce load through an improved cylinder tube in a 28-gauge throws a tight, dense pattern compared to that of a 12-gauge, hence the 28-gauge's reputation for mythical lethality. The standard field load for 28-gauge is 3/4 ounces. 7 1/2 lead shot contains, on average, 394 pellets, or 350 pellets for a 1-ounce target load. A 2 3/4-inch 12-gauge shell with 11/8-ounces of No. Their light payloads expose, not mask, a gunner's deficiencies. They are unsuited for beginners for those very reasons. 410-bore and 28-gauge are good guns for children and beginners because of their light payloads and light recoil. Those in the artillery division of the shotgun world wrongly say that the. Martin's gun is art, a vintage Model 42 Winchester with jaw-dropping figures in the stock and gold engraved game scenes in the receiver. Joe Morgan of Little Rock, a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, hunts only with a 20-gauge.Ĭommissioner Bobby Martin of Bentonville hunts with a. I mostly use a 16-gauge these days, and it's enough.

Many of us who don't use 31/2-inch shells insist on having 12-gauge shotguns with 31/2-inch chambers because you never know when you might need one.

We prefer 3-inch magnums, and some of us even prefer 31/2-inch magnums, which launch 10-gauge payloads from overbored 12-gauge tubes. Somewhere we got the idea that 23/4-inch 12-gauge shells don't kill game anymore. This is duck hunting country, so ours is a 12-gauge state. It just doesn't really apply to the hunting we do in Arkansas. Along with a superior quail hunt, my recent trip to Georgia renewed my dormant love affair with an old flame, the 28-gauge shotgun.
